Solid State Guitar Amp Forum | DIY Guitar Amplifiers

I don't think you should hear anything when there's no power! It sounds like something's connected that shouldn't be... (extra solder blob or something). The apollo should have LOTS of boost and I imagine it'll be fairly clean until you really crank it up so yours is not working right.

I totally agree! I really like my old l5 for most things, but sometimes tubes are the right thing for the project. It's the light (and bright) break up that I'm never satisfied with when I use SS.

I see... go here: http://www.geofex.com/ and look for the rangemaster in the 'schematics and more' section. There's a 'technical discription and how to build one' link... under that download the how to build one pdf. You should read the whole thing (the apollo is basically a rangemaster with a 'tone' pot on the front end, instead of a volume pot at the end), but in particular the 'turn on, tune in' section talks about biasing the transistor. Germanium transistors vary a lot in their qualities (gain, leakage)... I'm actually surprised you were able to buy one from an electronics store. I ordered a butt load of Ge transistors from eastern europe and, although all of them 'worked' in the rangemaster and the orange t/b booster I made, only a few sounded really good.

but back to the biasing at hand, you can also use 100k trim pot instead of the fixed 80k resistor to bias the transistor... it'll be a bit noisier in the end, but I did that on my rangemaster and it doesn't bother me (of course other people really want it to be very quiet... i'm not that picky). Actually, I've never noticed it being particularly noisey at all... granted it amplifies treble, so it will be a bit hissy no matter what...

But let's not get ahead of ourselves... as I've tried to hint at, if you're using the stock resistor values and your transistor isn't totally fried, then you should probably be getting something out of your circuit.

Are you using a bypass switch? Does it pass the guitar signal when you have the effect 'off'? If not, it's wired wrong. Try retracing your layout against the schematic to make sure there isn't anything shorting or connected wrong. Also make sure you have the battery hooked up properly. Most effects are negative ground, this one's positive.

yeah, SS does not clip or sag like tubes. All the distortion should probably come from the preamp or pedals.

Hey egrubbs,

I usually use small bear (http://www.smallbearelec.com/home.html) for stompbox parts. He might be a little more expensive (sometimes not), but he specializes in stompbox parts. That way there's less chance you'll order the wrong thing. (I'd say the ruby qualifies as a stompbox of sorts). So I'd order resistors from this list, http://www.smallbearelec.com/Categories.bok?category=Resistors

and caps from this list, http://www.smallbearelec.com/Categories.bok?category=Capacitors%2C+Low+Voltage+Poly+Film

He's got jacks, enclosures, battery clips, etc., too.

The first pic you posted is the perf board layout... so it's more-or-less a pic of the circuit board if you use perf. Put the components where it shows and connect the wires where the lines are. Make sense?

Someone might have posted some pics of their guts over at the diystompboxes.com site... you could do a search...

yeah, a three band would be better than a one knobber... I gotta finish my poweramp before I can start experimenting, though... wish I had more time!

Let us know what you come with.

Well, it's usually some weird ground issue that causes equipment to shock me... try plugging it into a different outlet, that usually works for me (although I'm not exactly sure why). I suppose it could be some sort of loop with the poweramp, guitar... etc. Are the preamp and poweramp grounded (three prong plug) and/or have polarity switches?